“Men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath every moment.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance”

“Dave Lambert: Audition at RCA,” a 1964 documentary about the jazz singer by D.A. Pennebaker:

(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)

“An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it is also more nourishing.”

H.L. Mencken, A Little Book in C Major 

From 2004:

“This is absolutely the only place to live,” I told her. “Nowhere else.”

“Oh, I guess it’s all right to visit other places,” she replied. “And you could live somewhere else for six months, if you had to. Or maybe even a year.”

“But only if you don’t give up your lease,” I said firmly.

We giggled, knowing perfectly well that neither one of us had the slightest intention of going anywhere else for more than a week or two….

“The greatest pleasure I know is to do a good action by stealth, and to have it found out by accident.”

Charles Lamb (quoted in The Athenaeum, January 4, 1834)

Jascha Heifetz and Erick Friedman play the finale of Bach’s Two-Violin Concerto, accompanied by Brooks Smith, at an undated master class:

(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)

“I will not be modest. Humble, as much as you like, but not modest. Modesty is the virtue of the lukewarm.”

Jean-Paul Sartre, The Devll and the Good Lord